


Love in Everything

by Ansanbustai



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angel Eichi, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Incubus Eichi, M/M, Reaper Rei, Sex, Themes of Reincarnation, more detailed tags by chapter, vampire Rei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26942899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ansanbustai/pseuds/Ansanbustai
Summary: "Rei's mind drifts through his memories as he and Eichi share another long kiss on this night.  It's languid and gentle, wings and fangs and horns concealed under the guise of their human forms."..."It'd be nice to not be alone."
Relationships: Sakuma Rei/Tenshouin Eichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. Sanguine

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiiiiii this has been a brainworm in my head for awhile. I've been writing another Reichi fic for a good year now (HELP) and this was a nice break from it, even tho it took months too. I don't have a beta so uhhhh.. yea  
> Content Warnings: This fic will have two sex scenes; I'll separate them into their own chapters in case you wanna skip them... they're kinda long though, and they have important plot info sprinkled in there so...  
> This chapter starts off with a sex scene. As a warning, it will contain blood play, blood drinking, anal sex, and rough sex. Everything is consensual.  
> As a side note: I defined Eichi as a cambion, which is basically just a half-incubus.

Heartbeats don't exist for beings that have long lingered outside the living realm. The dull, steady thump playing through his static-swarmed mind was nothing so romantic. Eichi opens his mouth wider, and while he thought his voice would be lost, manages a sobbing moan.

The hand yanking at his roots doesn't seem to appreciate that, and soon a set of claws is ripping through the flesh of his arched back, digits seeming to slot so nicely between his ribs.

" _ Rei _ ," but his partner pays his plea no mind. The claws dig deeper. That same, rhythmic clench of a throat as the other swallows continues.

Even his own wings are upset, one stuck clutching desperately around Rei's shoulders, the other flared out and shuddering every few seconds. His slitted pupils stay fixated on the ceiling, Rei's other hand fixed around the front of his throat to hold him steady.

Rei drank. And drank. With his partner focused, Eichi curves his body further with a gasp, reaching back with blunt nails to hook onto anything that could give him purchase. Palms filled with black feathers, he tries to breathe under the steady hand compressing his airway, his right arm tickled by his lover's hair.

He rolls his hips only once, keening in both pain and bliss as he rocks down further onto Rei's cock.

There's another, last swallow. The tip of a tongue is soon burrowing it's way into the holes on the pillar of his throat.

He fucks himself more on Rei's dick, openly whining once the firm grip on his neck changes to a long shredding of claws over his collarbone.

"'S good. Good. Rei-" but it doesn't last long. At least, not while in the luxury seat of Rei's lap, spine against Rei's chest.

"Patience would look good on you once in a while, Eichi." The moment Eichi had worked himself into a rhythm riding the other, Rei roughly shoved him forward, chuckling at the cracking noise Eichi's head made against the bottom post of the bed.

"Gnahh…" blood trailing from his chest, his neck, and his back had left him in a pool atop white, satin sheets. His arms shake as he tries, and fails, to push his body up. His wings flap uselessly, scrambling for stability.

"But we both know that's impossible for someone like you." It's futile; he does know. Rei is digging his claws into his calves and ripping him back to him on the bed, a dragged streak of blood and rumpled sheets left in his wake. Eichi's toes curl, and his fingers twist into the blankets as he groans. Rei responds by pulling his hips up and reaching between his wings to smash his head back into the mattress.

Eichi's tail winds around his arm, tugging him closer, craving contact. Contact.

"Such a poor sight. A little angel whore, weeping in a pool of his own blood." Eichi dares to do no such thing, eyes shut and mouth closed, the smell and feel of his own blood all over his face urging him not to swallow even air.

" _ Mmm _ ," he wiggles his hips, seeking out what he came here for. Instead, Rei laughs, and takes pleasure in grabbing a fist full of his hair, and subsequently using it as a handle to push and brush Eichi's face into the puddle underneath him again. Again. Again. The sound is wet and humiliating, despite no real pain offered by the soft blankets beneath him.

"Is that all? I needn't even ask you to beg? You'll do it of your own free will?" He crashes the blond's head down into a clean space on their sheets, dragging his face across to paint them filthy. The smell of sweat and iron and sex is dizzying.

"Rei…  _ Rei _ ," regardless of the words, Eichi is chanting his name the moment his lips can part. Rei returns the favor by adding a second hand to his hair and pulling. The demon arches beautifully, a moan flying past his lips as his spine bends to an almost impossible angle, arms scrambling back to find Rei's hips.

"Look at all that food you've wasted." A light, amused laugh follows his words. With his tone so airy, the ruthless way he throws Eichi back to the foot of the bed comes as a surprise, even to the demon.

The blonde groans, head slumping over the side of the mattress as his left hand grabs onto the wooden pillar there. He's soon pulling himself back up to his knees, both hands clutching the post. It's a miracle it hadn't broken from the first impact, really. Rei wonders how hard he would have to work to make that happen, and decides he can play with the idea.

"Go on. Beg again. I want to hear every word." Eichi whines, and from behind him, Rei can see the shuddering of his wings and shoulders, and the labored breathing rising through his chest. "Or were you too weak to even take a teeny-tiny blow to your head? That's rather pathetic,  _ Eichi-kun, _ " Rei punctuates his words with a sharp smack to the other's ass.

Eichi's legs try to give out underneath him at the blow, but Rei had shuffled close enough to stretch a feathered wing down around his front, holding the demon up as another sound slap makes contact with his reddened skin.

"You were so vocal earlier. Come, now. A being like you can handle a bit of blood loss, right~?" He's abusing Eichi's flesh at this point, watching messes of blotched, red skin become positively tortuous after enough repetition. The wounds slowly start to build as he brings the force of his vampiric strength down in an entertaining rhythm, and the demon's spine seems to vibrate with each agonizing hit.

Eichi's hands eventually lose grip of the post, and he's kept from tumbling over the edge of the bed by Rei's sudden grip on the base of his left wing.

Once he's sure Eichi's safe, the vampire laughs softly to himself at the sight.

"Leaving so soon?" But rather than a proper response, Rei is answered with a desperate tone.

"Please,  _ Rei _ -" which is interrupted by a yelp as said being grinds his claws into the jut of Eichi's hip bone. The demon before him sobs, and Rei pulls him back up with a sudden tug, then uses his grip on Eichi's wing to shove his upper body into the same post he had already thoroughly introduced him to. Still solid. Still whole even after using Eichi's fragile body like a battering ram against it several more times. Perhaps it simply wasn't meant to be broken, unlike the frail being before him.

"Hold on, unless you want to really knock yourself off the bed." And Eichi complies, wrapping his arms around the pillar as if it were a lifeline. 

As it were, "broken" described the current Eichi best; he was never this compliant outside of sex, but Rei supposes that's what being a starving, suffering incubus will do to someone.

"Ple-ase, please," Eichi adjusts, whining desperately as he lowers his head, cheek dragging against the engraved wood. A trail of blood (likely from his split lip that he turns his head to pout at Rei with) paints the length of wood above him. Behind him, his ass is raised high, his thin tail frantically whips around, and his legs part as wide as they can go without losing height. His hands still hold the post, far above him, and Eichi sways his hips again. "Rei, I  _ need _ you."

And it wasn't as if Rei hadn't agreed to this. Breaking was one thing, but he would hate to starve his newest companion.

"Your voice gets so cute when you let yourself act like a slut." After another, almost affectionate strike to his ass, Rei is shuffling closer. One hand immediately buries its claws into the top of the incubus' thigh, while the other languidly strokes and lines up his own dick. It isn't as if Eichi wasn't already slicked and loosened up, but Rei still took his time tracing his head around the wet skin there, using his hand to bounce his cock around the base of Eichi's tail.

"How many times will you get off tonight, hmm? You're always so eager." He's blatantly speaking over Eichi's chorus of pleas. It's such a beautiful sound.

Rei twitches in his hand from the blonde's cries, and decides that when Eichi starts to form a mantra of his name while aimlessly rocking back, he should spare him some torment.

Rei sinks into him with ease. The demon writhes before he can properly bottom out, so Rei also stuffs the flesh of Eichi's other leg with his claws as an incentive to hold still.

As their hips meet, Eichi exhales a heady noise of ecstasy.

"Move, move," needy, he rolls against his hips, but Rei holds still, hissing as everything grows tighter and tighter around him. How Eichi managed to move at all was beyond him. It was like this every time he entered him; suffocatingly hard to move, the grip on his dick unforgiving. Rei had barely held on during his feeding. It was amusing to joke about Eichi's "magical sex demon" bullsht, but this sort of stimulation coupled with his fresh meal, their delightful foreplay, and a previous go at his lover's ass...

"Eichi," he gets out two cants of his hips, then spills deep inside the other.

Feeling Rei twitching and a familiar warmth seep through his veins, Eichi whines. It was too soon for him, of course, but claiming a bit of Rei's pleasure was always a bit of an aphrodisiac.

That, and it made quick work of the fresh wounds left by his lover.

"Don't leave me just yet," he breathes, indignant and amused and totally blissed out. Steam rises out of the splits in his flesh. The tail that had wrapped itself around his own length slithers back in search of the other's skin.

"Again, Eichi?" Rei's voice comes ragged as the sight of the pale tail's tip catches in his eyes. The orgasm makes his head feel so fuzzy; he almost laughs.

"As many times as I want. We agreed to that." Voice unusually composed for someone who had been scrambling all over him previously, Eichi sinks the barb of his tail in the fold of Rei's right arm. The action draws a smirk out of him; subtle reminders that this was all an act amuse Rei more than anything.

"I'm aware; be my guest, if you're really so desperate." A subtle permission that Eichi happily jumps on. A handful of seconds pass, Rei so used to the sounds of their breathing being out of sync that it was almost comfortable.

The magic seizes him all at once. Rei tilts his head back, groaning. The fuzziness of his orgasm was gone: his head was heavy, and his dick was aching.

Because he was still inside, it took no time at all to work up a bruising pace. Eichi keened with every hard slam, and the wreck of the headboard on the opposite side of the bed against the wall came in a constant, all-too-fast rhythm.

Rei's hips stutter, and he bends over his partner as he climaxes into him once more. Eichi's voicing nonsensical words, perhaps the tongue of Heaven or Hell. Rei reaches around to his stomach, then lower to get a hold of him, twisting his wrist and pumping it soundly. Eichi whines out his name, and his violent orgasm shakes both of them.

" _ Rei _ ," he arches his back just a hair more. His heels dig into Rei's calves, and his pleased voice borders on angelic. When he calls out to him at times like these, it almost seems like love.

_ But Eichi is an incubus; only showing what he knows Rei will want. _

His dick can't quite differentiate between love and lust at the moment, though. It doesn't soften at all. Rather, they both would keep at this until Rei got off enough times to make Eichi happy. Instead of the burning pain of overstimulation, Rei feels the want of kissing and holding and teasing Eichi all over again. Of taking him and having him all to himself.

Rei wraps his arms around his lover's waist, chest pressed warmly against the other's blood-stained back, and starts rolling into him once more.

* * *

"I did get a little carried away, didn't I? Sorry, Eichi-kun~" a warm, wet cloth in hand, Rei lazily lays on his partner's chest and wipes around his eyes. "Are you okay?" A stupid question to ask an incubus after a spat of magic-induced, miraculously-healing sex. Still, the tired blue eyes beneath him demanded some guilt on Rei's part.

"So long as you do this, I don't mind playing along. That's just what I'm used to." Eichi, on the other hand, is more than happy to be sprawled under him with a blanket (two blankets, if the warm feathers of Rei's wings counted) laid over the two of them. The vampire is relaxingly careful as he rubs away the crusted blood around his lips. 

Being spoiled wasn't so common for his species; then again, neither were long term relationships. It was a tremendous compromise all the same, if not all-too-perfectly binding.

"Besides, I know what to say if I ever get actually uncomfortable. At the moment, I feel great."

"Is that so~? Does that mean you're coming to work with me again, or am I alone today?" Every bit of overly-friendly conversation was just another slab of glass in the soles of their feet. The possibility of parting had long passed. Eichi is well aware of that, but answers Rei's question with the lazily confident eyes of a housecat.

"Perhaps if Rei-kun scrubs my back, I could be convinced…" A gentle grip on the nape of Rei's neck draws him in for a sweet kiss, the soft fingertips of his other hand tracing shapes around his chest.

"As if a little cambion like you could live any other way." His own words prompt Rei to ponder how Eichi's gotten so far. He finds it in his soul to identify the main reason as spite (probably towards the heavens, but perhaps towards his dear succubus mother as well).

"I've told you; it's just convenient, not necessary. I can relocate anytime I want." A lie. The main problem, which they both knew and refused to acknowledge, was that he didn't want to leave at all.

He  _ would  _ be the one leaving this time; Keito-kun was adamant about that much. His small, frequent feedings interrupted the reapers' work, and when he needed healing afterwards simply because of the awful roll of Heaven and Hell in his blood, he interrupted it even further.

Speaking of which, what was left of his divine senses begins ringing, his pupils shrinking to slits at the rush of dark power above him.

"Now now," both hands take Rei's, halting the summoning process of his precious weapon. Rei simply chuckles at being caught.

Eichi intertwines their fingers, his tail absentmindedly petting his lover's thigh. "You don't go in for a few hours… The least you can do is help me get the blood out of my hair. If you weren't so messy and wasteful-" cut off by another kiss, Eichi feels his eyes narrow as a smirk is pressed away from his lips.

The magical provocation from Rei was undoubtedly intentional, meant to be a show of strength, dangling danger right before his nose.

Eichi perceives it as fun, which is how he has always seen the other's powers. How he sees this kiss.

Whining as a set of fangs buries itself deep into the flesh of his neck, the vision of "fun" fails to fall flat.

"You ate so much already," the complaint comes as his toes curl and his lips quirk up in a smile, a soft sigh and closed eyes painting the picture of someone in a full state of bliss rather than anger.

"I'm making up for all that we wasted last night." Swept up in Rei's arms and carried off to the bathroom as a magically cleaned blanket flutters to the ground behind them, Eichi limply tugs at his partner's hair in revenge.


	2. Invariability

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is SFW but contains mentions of death and death of background characters in a hospital setting.

The scent of a hospital depends on the ward, but it always smells eerily close to death. Cleaners and chemicals used to keep it presentable, to keep everyone thriving in one room knowing that someone in the next is dying. Small upsets like that, even the scent of blood or the salt in tears, could harm other humans into panic. Rei hadn't lost the  _ privilege  _ of a heightened set of senses, even after he died all those centuries ago. Sick human beings could be so disgusting and fragile, not unlike helpless, injured dogs. Rei smelled everything. Heard everything. Saw everything.

The book in his hands glows with the name of the woman before him. Well into her 90s. Terminal.

He wouldn't be here otherwise.

"Are you comfortable?" Eichi's soft voice flutters off of him as he writes down the time, the name, a confirmation, his signature. Despite their downfalls, Rei loved humans. Their drive and their kindness and cruelness of love.

"I'm going to hold your hand. You must be in a lot of pain." Eichi had told him once that it would be his downfall: that Rei would be unable to reap a soul someday simply because he was crushed by his own love for them. "Keep your eyes shut. You will find peace." The fate to befall any reaper who failed to make quota was a swift demise. That was common knowledge. 

It has been a weight on his shoulders for hundreds of years, but never quite a problem. All lives must come to an end, be they human, vampire, or otherwise: sometimes at each other's hands. Even immortals like angels and demons faced their end, whether or not they ever truly lived.

Immortality itself was a farce. Rei had lived it once. Was living it again. Had taken souls of reapers without blinking.

Most reapers were bastards anyway; they were chosen specifically for their desensitized approach to death in their previous life, so it's not a surprise. A majority of new reapers are either punished by God for misbehavior, or taken mercy upon for their newfound suffering.

Rei supposes that likely applies to all beings, even the humans that he loves so much.

With Eichi grasping his target's hand, a horde of family members sobbing and bumping into each other around his invisible, intangible form, Rei raises his scythe.

The nurse comes in a few minutes later to wash her up and place a tag on her toe.

* * *

Around the hospital where he had been moved, it wasn't unusual for Rei to hear patients relay stories of an angel and a demon skulking around together. The white flesh of Eichi's bat-like wings could fool anyone into thinking he was an angel. His own black feathers? Usually not perceived as friendly. He's certain, but not quite offended, that these people fail to see what they truly are.

Children especially chatted about them constantly; Eichi loved visiting the pediatric ward, despite Rei rarely having jobs there. He went along, however. "An escape from work."

In reality, they both know it's just love.

_ "By taking the negative sensations away from patients," _ Eichi had told him once, breath labored from the burden of the pain he had taken from others,  _ "I satisfy that hunger left from my father's blood. I live a little longer without self-destructing." _ It made sense: somewhat like Rei's persistent appetite despite his life as a vampire coming to an end. Reapers had to eat to maintain their human-like forms. Eichi had to play his part as an empath to keep himself from collapsing.

Eichi, at the moment, was waving excitedly to a toddler, whose eyes shifted between him and Rei with explicit awe. Her mother, fiddling with the hospital phone directory nearby, took no notice of the two. Only those close to the cusp of life — who had just been reincarnated or those who were approaching it — could see The true forms of those who breached from the world of the eternally dead.

"Shhh," but by gently settling his finger over his lips, the girl follows his cues, settling back in the hospital bed quietly. Her tiny hands in his, Eichi feeds from the pain and the loneliness and the misery. The confusion and fear and delirium. She falls asleep as the two leave, the misconception of angels floating around in her head.

Her name was nowhere to be found in Rei's books. He is thankful.

* * *

_ "Because my mother's blood makes any divine cleansing ceremony fatal for me, I usually take to cleansing myself with intimacy."  _ It's a staple method for demons, but even more so for the incubus and succubus of the realm. Property hauntings and possessions, where negative energy was readily available at all times, was generally how young demons fed. Though, perhaps "young" isn't the most proper word.

" _ Most demons aren't born. They either fall or they are created by tragedy."  _ Eichi's eyes looked positively captivating when he was sad. His tears of sorrow brought forth both blessings and misfortune.

For that reason, his outward expressions of misery were far less frequent than his actual bouts of despair.

" _ I suppose that makes me special… my mother kept me alive by channeling some of her energy to me. I was an invaluable piece of blackmail to her."  _ As any half-angel cambion would be. It's hard to see him as a mere thing, however, when he's been such a constant albeit distant presence in Rei's life.

Rei's mind drifts through his memories as he and Eichi share another long kiss on this night. It's languid and gentle, wings and fangs and horns concealed under the guise of their human forms. A mere couple out for a stroll through the neighborhood at midnight, visible to both living and undead. He savors these moments: lets his mind wander to the possibility of having them for eternity with the same man.

" _ I'm so tired of being my own venom. _ " Eichi had said once. Rei kissed him long and soft that night too. Neither of them speak of it, just as neither of them will speak of tonight. Words that can't keep them together long enough.

_ It'd be nice to not be alone. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally gonna make this a very long fic, so I hope it being so short doesn't make the info dumps unbearable. I try to make explanations flow well.


	3. Alabaster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW. It contains a non-rough sex scene, and also has themes of depression and allusions to chronic illness. There is minor blood/injury and blood drinking, as well as themes of reincarnation and mentions of death.

When Keito had assigned a position as a public hospital's reaper to Rei, stating aloud (rather than in a contract as he preferred to do everything through) that it was a "special case," he had never imagined the "special" part being a free-spirited cambion comforting his targets, then promptly trying to get in his pants.

That said, Eichi's lips wrapped around his dick aren't anything less than what he would consider "special."

"Fuck," because as he groans at his hips being weakly pressed down in the other's shaking hold, all he feels is an angel's blessing. It was a dizzying alteration of the tip and flat of a tongue overindulging the slit at his head, and Eichi's entire throat squeezing around his entire length. For now, they both could avoid sorrow. The stress leaves his aching muscles, and the hot tears streaming down his partner's cheeks as he fucks his face with Rei, he knows, are equal parts relief and pain. 

Eichi's symptoms would usually reach a peak after a week without a cleanse. His body would fail him, his pain would immobilize him, he would wake up either thrashing and screaming or unable to even blink. When angels die, their bodies singe and erupt into light. When demons die, they burn and crumple to ash. Hell hath no fire that Heaven hadn't originally crafted.

Eichi was somewhere in the middle, and feared the scorn of both every day.

Having the same, constant presence at his side brought him peace even in his terror. An extra cleanse between peaks of agony, only as much as his holy blood allowed, kept him grounded. It made Eichi happy, even if he would never admit to it; he would rather use his words to distance, just as Rei did to him.

"Rei-kun's so cute like this~" thoroughly spent down Eichi's throat, the reaper merely offers a lazy smile at his lover's ragged words. The three fingers stuffed up his ass stretch him further, but his groan is caught by Eichi's kiss. His tongue tastes like sugar and cinnamon, despite just downing Rei's load.

Probably some sort of stupid incubus skill.

"Bastard for mockin' me… I hate your guts," Rei breathes against Eichi's lips, eyes shut and mouth open. Blissful, he homes in on the sound of the demon giggling. If only he could force himself to truly hate Eichi, their exchanges could be easier.

"I loathe you too." Eichi tenderly spreads his legs apart, trailing kisses down the soft skin of his inner thighs. Rei's muscles twitch, the sensation of his silky hair brushing against his cold skin turning his breaths heavy.

Hatred. Loathing. 

Nothing could be further from the truth 

"Eichi… Eichi-kun…" With hands roaming over his flesh, Rei tilts his head back into the mountain of pillows behind him. Though the soft noise of lips on his skin fills his head with cotton, he manages to flutter his eyes open to take in the area around them.

Their bed. Their room. Their apartment that they had rented together.

"Together" came with so many implications that they neglected to mention. It had been years since they christened a hotel room's sheets with their bodies, but the exchange continued as if nothing was different. As if they weren't a couple. As if they hadn't silently agreed to an eternity by each other's insufferable sides. As if this wasn't home.

"Tightening up on me?" Eichi hums, entertained by the sudden groan drawn from his lover. Rei's long, dark lashes lay against his cheeks: hauntingly pale and cool, the skin there so very soft.

The pace was different when Rei was like this. When he had an awful day at work and simply wanted to be spoiled. Even if he wasn't an incubus, Eichi would know how to best treat that sort of sorrow by now. How Rei liked to be handled when he wanted to feel lovable.

"My little pillow prince… You're so adorable. Open up." The gleam of fangs meets his eyes, and Eichi leans in, reflecting the open mouth of his partner. The tip of his tail whips around, and the barb there slices open his own bottom lip just before he captures Rei's top lip between his teeth.

Rei's chest betrays a muffled sob. The pace of Eichi's fingers stays steady, but the taste of angel blood mixed with demon magic flooding Rei's mouth is euphoric.

Eichi's blood is heavy and sweet. If he were still an immature vampire, he would have torn his throat open long ago. Maybe even upon the first feeding.

Rei would have let him think he got away with only a little bite, then chase him to exhaustion: a game of sorts that he, as the young heir to a macabre throne, played all too often. Now, he simply rolls his hips down onto his partner's fingers and continues to reverently suck every drop from the deep gash on his lip. 

"Mmm," not that Eichi seems to mind. It's a fair trade: life force for life force. Even so, he pulls back once his hand is wrapped around Rei's dick. The reaper's head feels light and unfocused; the dimly lit image of himself reflected back at him in Eichi's eyes is utterly desperate. The dull illumination from the low light overhead circles the outlines of Eichi's horns like a halo.

Before long, the demon has ducked down and taken him into his mouth again, lips meeting the skin of Rei's abdomen while the back of his throat cradles the head of Rei's dick.

"Fuck," with a constant eye contact, a press against just the right spot with his fingers, and a few more bobs of his head, Eichi had brought him to climax once more. Rei's vision blanks briefly, and as the world fades back in around him, the sight of Eichi's completely unmarred, smirking lips greets him.

The angel kisses his eyelids slow and sweet, combing his fingers back through his ink-black bangs.

"You're so beautiful, Rei." The demon is given a dazed, distant look once he pulls away, and a spark of emotion burns through his chest. It's ugly and horrid, something he had only recently been able to put a name to.

_ "I died,"  _ Rei had told him once, breaths even and voice soft, " _ at the hands of my lover many centuries ago, and yet, even now, I still love him."  _ Eichi had turned to face Rei in bed, fixing a curious look at him. He looked so vulnerable.  _ "I never want to be the same person I was then; I recall every awful thing I had done. I remember that I stole everything from him: how I lied and killed to make him believe I was the only one who could never leave him, but… time is a cruel thing."  _ Rei reached out as his eyes closed in exhaustion. Their fingers interlocked, and Eichi idly holds on, pondering why this was being said to him. Perhaps it was a drawn out way to break things off, as pathetic as that sounded. As distant as Eichi suddenly felt. __

_ "I can no longer remember his beautiful face that I adored, be it blissfully smiling as we held each other, or twisted in desperation as he drove a stake through my chest. When I try…"  _ it had been a long, hard day for them both, just like the present. Eichi distinctly remembers how tired Rei was. How his voice wavered. How he breathed a bit faster before speaking again.

_ "When I try to remember it, I can only see you." _

Jealousy hadn't properly captured the cold weight in his chest. Nor did it describe the burning, proprietorial thoughts that flooded his mind. It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear.

Melancholy. Resignation. A pinch of pure pain.

It hurt that God would be so unfair as to only let him thrive as an imitation.

"And you're all mine, Rei... So gorgeous, all for me." Eichi could bury such feelings under the guise of foreplay, but only when they were like this. Only when he served his role as an incubus with his meal.

Their relationship was solid, but that is why it was so fragile. One out-of-line conversation, and they could both be sent scurrying away as quickly as possible, refusing to go back to the best source of life they both had. Any sort of conversation on love would never go well, after all. As unfair as it was, Eichi would never be the human that Rei adores.

Wiping his fingers on the bed sheets to banish his thoughts, Eichi reaches out for more lube, spreading it over his dick before parting Rei's legs further. His lover seems to have gotten his wits back by now, chuckling and wrapping his arms around Eichi's neck as his own knees are brought up to rest on the incubus's shoulders. They didn't need honesty to fuck, even if Eichi's throat tightened hard enough to render the angel speechless.

"So very forward, Eichi-kun…" Their sublimely deceitful lips meet again, and the demon swallows an obscene noise from his lover as he sinks into him. Tries to lose himself in the feeling of it. Rei's eyes flutter shut, the pillows under his hips shifting as he arches further back into the cushions piled against the headboard. His wings spread, spilling pillows over the sides of the bed in the rush of his pleasure. Reckless. Blissful.

" _ Ah _ ," they part, and while Eichi's pace is slow, the rigid head of his dick feels so,  _ so _ good against that same sweet spot he's effortlessly rocking into over and over again. Rei's porcelain skin looks gorgeous as his black hair curls and shifts over it with each pleasured tilt of his head or bounce of a thrust. His short, melodic breaths grip at the angel's heart.

"Eichi-kun," fingers aggressively hooking into blonde hair, Rei speaks, urgent and shameless and ignorant. "Make me feel like  _ you're _ all  _ mine _ , and perhaps I'll entertain your words." Even in bed, such words were usually met with a quip, perhaps even a small, playful smack to his arm.

Tonight, for some reason, they make Eichi's eyes soften. The expression aches suddenly. It's a surprise not unlike a jagged hunk of wood in Rei's chest, but another climax carries his mind away before he can properly answer it with a meaningful look of his own.

Eichi's release came soon after, buried deep with his lips ghosting over his lover's.

Despite the vitality such an exchange should have given him, the angel's breath is still inexplicably shaky when he answers.

"Of course, Rei. Tonight, just like every night, I am yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rei: My kink is emotional intimacy  
> Eichi: haha loser  
> Eichi:  
> Eichi: Wait that's kinda hot


	4. Denouement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized while trying to abbreviate the fic name that it spells LIE (gasp). It's a coincidence but it's funny bc it makes me think of the sHE beLIEved (HE LIED) meme.  
> Anyway, this chapter is totally SFW. It contains major character death, as well as descriptions of hospitals and death of background characters.

Heartbeats don't exist for beings that have long lingered outside the living realm.

But the steady thump in his ears was oh-so-romantic.

Rei presses his eyes together firmly, willing his body to wake. His long lashes obscure his vision, but his ears ring with the soft chirps of songbirds.

It's not quite dusk when Rei manages to open his eyes completely. He's curled up against his lover, head on his shoulder, taking in the sight of his pale skin and the defined angle of his jaw from below. It was unusual, but not completely unexpected, to wake and see Eichi in his human form. It ate up energy, but after a long night of feeding, he tended to spend his spirit unwisely. Naively.

There's an eerie warmth radiating from him, or perhaps that's simply Rei's own body flushing at the sight of the other?

He maneuvers to kiss Eichi awake, first holding himself above the other, then laying atop him, chest to chest. His dark hair falls from his shoulders, tickling his lover's cheeks, but Rei, of course, adds a little extra kiss or two on top of that.

"Nn," when he's finally greeted with Eichi's blue eyes, Rei kisses him again. The blonde beneath him responds in kind, wrapping his arms around him with a smile.

"Good morning, Rei. Feeling better?"

"Much. Yourself?" His wings flutter in a surge of affection as Eichi yawns, a noise not unlike a kitten's escaping his lips.

"A little."

It's an odd day.

The strange rhythm he had awoken to stays in his ears like a jingle, and a sinking feeling has found its home in Rei's chest as soon as he first stands to clean up. Eichi, on the other hand, seems completely unbothered, almost completely out-of-reach.

"... Come shower with me?" Rei doesn't want to split apart, so he decides to ask for help just this once. After an unusual amount of staring up at the ceiling, his partner slowly rises as well.

"Of course."

* * *

Neither the routine motions of his job nor the tender recitation of last words between loved ones could banish his awful, anxious feeling in his stomach.

The woman clutching the hand of his latest client was sobbing. The surgical-trauma center was filled with this sort of scene. A sudden tragedy taking away the life of someone far-too-abruptly. The patient's soul danced in Rei's palms, and he held off on releasing it for good until her girlfriend's tears could subside for a final goodbye.

Rei hated to see humans in pain. Their souls came out scrambling and tortured.

Yet the soothing grasp of an angel was nowhere in sight.

" _Hearing_ ," Eichi had told him just yesterday, as he held the hand of a young man struggling so hard to stay alive that his name in Rei's book flickered, "is _the last sense to go for almost any living being."_ The room was a chorus of crying. An ugly melody to be serenaded with on a deathbed.

" _That is, to say,_ " someone had rushed into the room and to the patient's side, but Eichi's hold on the man's hand remained as unwavering as his serene smile. " _It's never too late to tell someone what they mean to you._ "

Keito is a full-blooded angel, so when Rei's short list of clients comes to an end, he goes to pick his boss' mind. His "office" is a mere spiriting away, and by the offended look on Keito's face at Rei's abrupt arrival, he had so obviously missed him.

"Kei-kun," with a nod, he's comfortably seating himself on the guest couch, feet rising to rest on the desk that the busy little angel is working himself (even further) to death upon.

"Sakuma."

"I haven't used my clan's name in forever, Kei-kun. Lighten up," a laugh escapes Rei as he glances around the "room." In reality, it's a mess of clouds with a few pieces of furniture scattered about. The sky is a pleasant, pink hue. This sort of calming quiet must be how Keito works best.

"Rei." He corrects himself perfunctorily, returning to scratching his quill pen against the stack of documents before him. "Has Eichi finally exhausted you out of your wits? It took a few more years than expected, but-"

"Actually," with a smirk, Rei summons his book, completely up-to-quota, and tosses it on the pile of papers. "I'm doing just fine. Eichi-kun, however…" Trailing off with uncertainty grabs the angel's attention almost too well. His pen is set back into the inkwell, and Keito's undivided attention is on Rei.

"'However' what, Rei? I have a very busy schedule, and I cannot-"

"Eichi didn't come with me to work today." Keito's brow wrinkles: "is that truly so significant?" He leans forwards and adjusts his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. "It's possible he found another source to feed from, especially considering you two now have a permanent place of residence." But Rei shrugs his shoulders.

"Possible, but unlikely. He seemed awfully tired, yet he still maintained his human form all morning. When I left, he was laying down to take a nap."

"A nap?" It must have seemed as odd to his boss as it did to Rei, judging by his tone. The angel glances down to his paperwork, glances back up to the reaper, then removes his glasses to clean them on his pristine, white robes. A nervous habit of his.

"Yep. He said he wanted 'some extra rest.'" The vampire uncrosses, then recrosses his legs. Keito settles his glasses back onto his face.

"... Has he caught a cold?" 

"Do angels even get colds?" They stare at each other for a moment, and ultimately, Keito shakes his head and sighs.

"You're off work tomorrow. I'll stop by first thing in the morning to take a look at him, so make sure you're both there." With a business like tone, he picks up his quill once more and returns to his documents.

Satisfied with that conclusion, the vampire rises and throws a casual wave over his shoulder once he's turned away (towards another expanse of clouds, no less).

"And Rei?" He stops moving, but the edges of his very being, along with the book before his boss, begins to fade into stardust, angel magic guiding him home. "Keep him company until then. He gets horribly annoying when he’s lonely."

* * *

Despite the sun having long-set, their apartment is dark when Rei gets home. He doesn't need to flick on a light, so he doesn't bother. It's a small space, one the drawn curtains never allow the light of day to caress. Minimalistic, but clean. Reaping, as a career, paid in immortality, eternal youth, a sense of achievement and purpose, and very little actual money. Being an incubus only paid if you were lucky enough to land someone wealthy (that wasn't already taken by another demon, that is).

The kitchen they never use (save for Eichi's tea obsession) is directly by the door and attached to a living room with only a half-wall-slash-counter-space separating them. The "living room" in question is hardly large enough to fit a loveseat, a coffee table, and a desk with a laptop.

Rei slips out of his shoes and sheds his coat, hanging it on a hook by the desk. He side-steps between it and the corner of the kitchen wall to reach the bedroom door in an all-too-familiar movement.

Their room was overly simple due to how small it was; it only comfortably fit a queen-sized bed and two nightstands. Any extra clothing they wanted to store went in the pull-out drawers under the frame of their bed. Towels were stored in the attached bathroom (which Eichi often whined about, seeing as it only had a standing shower and no tub to relax in).

Rei's lips quirk into a smile as he remembers the rare show of petulance as the two decided between this apartment and an even smaller one with tacky wallpaper, ancient carpeting, and a hideous, _hideous_ bathroom with an equally ugly tub. His hand encircles the knob of their bedroom door as his mind drifts to kissing Eichi at a stupid home utility store where the angel absolutely _had_ to buy a kettle. How that same kettle sat in the small kitchen in Rei's pick of apartment, the two now saving up for a matching set of cups and saucers. His mind wanders to the fridge where Eichi began to store snacks of tomato juice for him, to the used laptop where Eichi played movies for them, to the loveseat they picked out together, to the coffee table they set mismatched cups upon.

With his heart overcome by the flashing images in his head, Rei thought of love.

"I'm home," He calls softly, just loud enough to be heard over the squeaky top hinge of the bedroom door. His eyes trace through the black room, unbothered by the dark. Even so, he flicks on the dull overhead lights for Eichi's sake.

"Not even a welcome-back?" Rei chuckles, settling onto the mattress while addressing the lump of blankets on Eichi's side of the bed. "Still napping?" He tries warmly when there's no reply, folding two fingers under the top hem of the blanket and playfully tugging at it. 

The cover all-too-easily falls away from Eichi's face with Rei's movement, and the world stops.

When he was a vampire, Rei was convinced there was no God. He had infinite life, eternal youth, a throne to sit on, endless possibilities at his fingertips.

Despite serving God for the past few centuries, it's cruelties like this that bring to surface his lingering doubt.

The length of silence spent between them settles like eternity in his stomach. A burning sensation rakes through his soul.

"Eichi. _Eichi_ ," the voice that leaves his lips is unfamiliar. Uncomposed. Random notes without a staff. Clawed hands settle over his lover's pale cheeks, tilting his face to better take in empty blue eyes. That dead expression that Rei has seen far too much of.

This isn't the sort of joke Eichi enjoyed playing. He always broke those with his own laughter and a constant smile. They were never well thought-out: usually just spur-of-the-moment plays on words. This was all too real.

His angel wore a human form. No wings. No horn. No tail. No halo.

Eichi's body slowly turns following his head. He's limp, wearing one of Rei's warm hoodies with his lower half still engulfed in their blankets.

"Did you go too long without feeding?" Lost, fearful, he scrambles for a reason, leaning down to kiss his partner. To try to give him life.

Eichi's lips are soft and cold and motionless.

This wasn't right. Nothing about this was right. Rei doesn't realize he's crying until he, in a moment of hope, mistakes his tears landing on his lover's cheeks for that of Eichi's own. His shoulders shake with the effort of keeping himself together, and his vision blurs as he grinds his teeth. 

That same rhythm from this morning meets his ringing ears, but this time it's slower. It's softer.

It's weak: pitiful, really. Rei chokes on a breath as he searches for an origin on Eichi's body. His fingers settle into the fold of the other's wrist, and he feels it. 

Eichi has a pulse.

The sound from this morning. The thready rhythm he hears now too.

"... Eichi?" The situation is incomprehensible. His voice fails to rouse him, and Rei's mind struggles to stay with his body. It feels like there's some split between his being and reality itself. Like the entire world is a nightmare.

But Eichi is the one who won't wake up.

A sudden scalding sensation builds from the burn of his heart and rouses Rei from his trance; it's something so easily perceived even in his disoriented state. 

The burn of a scheduled reaping.

His book materializes before him, yet no matter how many times he slings it away, it disappears in a puff of shadows and reorients itself before him. He has the day off tomorrow. His quota has ended for today.

Baring his fangs, Rei allows it to open itself before him. Keito would get an ear-full from him tomorrow, just as soon as Eichi was back to normal.

Just as soon as Eichi…

Eichi…

_Eichi_.

The name in his book. The name of his lover. The name of the man in his arms.

A cruel joke of God.

“You just had to be right…” Brought back down to Earth so swiftly and suddenly, Rei ignores the agonizing incandescence bleeding through his chest. The rhythm of Eichi’s life, finite and frail, grows softer. “You bastard.”

_“It’s never too late to tell someone what they mean to you._ " 

“I want… so badly,” he breathes, shuddering under the burden of a broken heart, “so badly to hate you.” Rei swallows, his hands framing Eichi’s face as his very existence falters. 

“It feels like I didn't even try...” The static coursing through his bones is nothing compared to the way his soul tears in two as his angel’s pulse ceases.

A scythe so unlike his own blazes through Eichi’s form. His soul wasn’t Rei’s to see, in life as in death.

“What an amazing conclusion to this tale,” Rei’s hears the impressed breath at the same time his body slumps forward. 

Unable to move, to speak, to breathe—he catches only the sight of tresses of blue hair surrounding them. Rei directs his gaze down to Eichi’s still-warm body, nose cushioned in the fabric of his own old, worn-down sweater that his love had decided he felt most comfortable passing away in. 

“Alas, your role has come to an end.” Hands smothered in suffocating leather gloves run over his back. Rei’s vision fades, Eichi's soft scent failing to reach him, the heightened sensations he had spent centuries suffering through begin to float away. His ears, however, still pick up the soothing, sweet sound of an angel in a reaper’s occupation.

“Sleep well, Rei. Eichi. Let us play all together next time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried really hard to make this narrative serious, but to also not take myself too seriously since this is just an incubus x vampire fic in the end lol. Writing hasn't come easily to me lately, so I'm happy I got this done at all. I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading this far! I kinda feel like the ending is lame and sudden, but I hope the build up to it is good enough to carry it. I can always go back and edit it at a later date if I decide it truly bugs me.  
> Some extra stuff: I decided to make Eichi die like a human would, since I figure humans, in theory, lay somewhere between the gods' beloved creation (angels) and those who oppose/disobey gods (demons), plus it worked well for the final scene, and I feel like Eichi being the epitome of a human kinda sums up his relationship with the Oddballs (and subsequently Rei) well. I was originally going to definitively state that Wataru was Rei's past lover, but I decided to leave it more open and just add him in at the end as an angel-like presence bc I like him and he's important to both Rei and Eichi in canon.  
> I also want to like... point out? That I didn't mean for this fic to point fingers at Eichi OR Rei. Their relationship fell apart because they had a lack of communication that hurt both of them in the end, even if they had similar feelings towards each other. They're both at fault, in a way, but it's also just a tragedy written by an author trying to write a bad ending lol. I like to write fics about previous lifetimes of characters where things didn't go as well for them; it's just a trope I enjoy.   
> Moral of the story is tell people that you love them if you love them, don't be sillay <3


End file.
